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Returning To Some Old Bowl Blanks....

Digging through my piles of stuff, I found eight old Keyaki Bowl blanks. This wood is also known as Zelkova, it is a VERY hard local Elm, when dry it turns like concrete or glass,
hard, hard stuff, have to sharpen all the time and take LIGHT cuts......

Well this one did not go so well, I did not like the inside shape of the rim and I went back and tried to make just one more cut.... BOOM shrapnel flying!
Sure glad I was wearing my Uvex Bionic face shield that thing is great!

Sigh...

I did have more success with these ones

All finished with just mineral oil, these are mean to be used, not put on a shelf, so for bowls that are used I really like jut plain mineral oil, you can refresh it easily and it works well, IMHO.

I have three more of these to do, and I checked them all, the are all at about 9% moisture content, which is very dry.

I learned a while back that the traditional Japanese turners who work with this wood a LOT and make really nice thin bowls out of it work it at between 22%-18% moisture content, apparently if you turn then and turn it thin you get very little warping as it dries, I'll have to try that the next time I get some.

Cleaning out some old inventory.

Cheers!

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
William Arthur Ward

Nicely done, Stu. Regarding the first pic, I'm convinced some pieces of wood simply don't want to be a bowl. That's one of them

Originally Posted by Jonathan Shively

Stu, can you submerge a dry blank in a water bath and leave it overnight or a few days/weeks/months and regain moisture?

The wood will soak up some of the moisture, but that won't cause it to behave the way wet wood typically does. When the wood dries, the cells seal up in a way that they can never really regain the moisture they once held. In some cases it can help make for smoother cuts, but it's because the water is acting as a lubricant, not because the wood is softer.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson
When the weird get going, they start their own forum. - Vaughn McMillan